Unveiled Wedding Events Blog

We like to create lounge areas where guests can kick back, relax and socialize.  The lounge continues to become more popular for weddings; it’s another aspect of the reception that adds excitement while giving that chill vibe to a room. Lounges can be added right around your dance floor for people to enjoy the entertainment; or they can be included in quieter surroundings where quests can have easy conversation.

Some designs can be very elaborate and some quite simple it all depends on the room you are working in, your design aesthetic and you vision of how your guests will enjoy their evening. In designing a lounge keep in perspective the room is for relaxing and socializing.  In this environment a lounge can be as simple as one sofa, and focal point of a refreshment bar or flowers.  The design should encompass some, if not all, of the five senses including sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste.

For this lounge we used modern but simple deep red sofas. An acrylic bar lit from behind helped set the mood and offered refreshments.  Small groupings of chairs and end tables or coffee tables are great areas for small gatherings of couples or relatives to catch up on the latest things happening in one another lives.

Consider creating your own lounge and you will find your guests enjoying the space!

In the late 1950s, French  inventor André Cassagnes, created “L’Ecran Magique“, the magic screen. When Ohio Art saw the toy they decided to develop the product and in 1960 L’Ecran Magique, renamed the Etch A Sketch, was born to become the most popular drawing toy in the business. Today the Etch-A-Sketch turns 50!

So, we wondered how this retro toy could be incorporated into a wedding – Certainly a fun addition to the evenings entertainment, when added to nostalgic arcade games and Wii stations. But for that pop-art couple we had an even better idea – Commission an original work by Etch a Sketch artist George Vlosich III. While this option might not be for most (Commissioned pieces start at $3,000) these are detailed one-of-a-kind gallery pieces that have taken George 20 years to perfect the art. The final Etch A Sketch creation is made permanent, signed, framed, and shipped to you. As seen on Oprah, she called it “one of a kind”. Unlike anything else, it will be the most asked about addition to you art collection.

$3000 a little over your budget? Well, now GV Art + Design offers a simple personalized Etch A Sketch created from a photograph. The price for a simple one portrait Etch A Sketch is only $525.00. Additional portraits can be added for an additional cost. While this piece is not done specifically by George Vlosich III, it creates a personalized pop art piece without the custom price tag. Consider this a great way to capture your engagement photo and display it during your reception. Or have one of your wedding photos forever captured in Etch A Sketch style!

When brides are planning their wedding you will instinctively hear someone ask ‘What is your something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue?’  Well this past weekend my parents Russell and Marian Vassar celebrated their 60^th Wedding Anniversary – by all means a very joyous time for family, relatives and friends.  As we have always said in planning a wedding, “inspiration is all around you, everywhere you look.”

As I was planning different aspects of the anniversary party I was working on re-creating the look and culinary details of their wedding back in 1950, which took place in a little town in northern Wisconsin called Florence.  As I looked at images, I thought it would be great to have a duplicate of my mom’s bridal bouquet made for the Blessing of the Marriage after the Saturday evening Catholic Mass.

I worked with the very talented Sassafras Floral + Garden Design in Minneapolis to recreate the bouquet.  My mom’s bouquet included white gladiola blossoms and red roses, along with her mother’s Rosary, with a bow of tulle and tied with a wide white satin ribbon.  The bouquet was beautiful as the image above reveals and I found myself starring at it as though it was the original and I had been transformed back in time.

The net of this, is that if you are thinking and thinking about what to do to remember your parents, or what to have for your something old; and not wanting a handkerchief, or wearing your mother’s gown that won’t fit, perhaps you may want to carry a replica of her bridal bouquet…it’s sure to bring back memories along with tears of joy!

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!

When it comes to spectacular grace and beauty, the wedding cake has always been the jewel of the wedding; next to the bride’s wedding gown!  Although today’s cakes take many different forms: from demure simplicity, lavish traditional to down right avant-garde and over-the-top.  The critical detail about cakes is how to present them in a fashion given its stature and wedding symbolism.

Cake should be cut or revealed before or after dinner service when all the guests can take part in watching the cake cutting.  If you have a stacked cake, you can have the cake carried in by the Executive Chef and Sous Chef, to be presented to the bride and groom to cut, is a great way to call attention to this tradition.  With the Chefs dressed all in white jackets and white chef’s hats, the amazing introduction will bring entertainment and excitement to your guests.  After the bride and groom cut the one piece the chefs can bring the cake back to the kitchen to be cut and served for dessert.

If you really want to bring attention to the cake, you may want to try something we did for a Signature Wedding by giving the cake it’s own room.

In the venue we created a dessert room that mimicked a music box.  The Centerpiece of the room was the multi-tiered cake. Placed on crystal plateaus, miniature desserts flanked each side of the cake table.  The room was approximately fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long.  We draped the room in red velvet and up-lit the walls for a dramatic effect. At the close of dinner and following speeches and toasts, the band performed a fanfare and indoor confetti shot off, the draped opening to the ‘cake room’ was pulled back revealing the spectacular cake as music box music played from inside.

Another way to reveal the cake or to give it a prestigious stature at the reception is to create a draped tent over the cake and up-light the draping.  It may not be a complete reveal but it will draw the guests’ attention to the beautiful work of art.

Creating a suite of personalized wedding day stationery is never a small task. But it used to be very simple, one engraved card that contained all the pertinent wedding information and the name of the recipient handwritten on the card – certainly a sign of simpler times. Today, most are coordinating a weekend of festivities, including travel accommodations for extended families and friends, and of course the RSVP cards (because who knows now-days that you are supposed to hand write an acceptance to the invitation? We can barely get people to return a stamped reply card!)

So what’s to do when you want to ensure that your guests don’t lose the bundle of cards that arrive in your invitation? Well, make a book! For one of our Signature Weddings we enlisted the help of designer Sarah Glad of A Milestone Paper Co. Together we conceptualized a unique invitation that would be hand-bound as booklets and personalized for each guest. We planned for the invitations to arrive in cellophane envelopes, giving the bold graphics a center-stage presence. Sarah even designed a custom stamp that included the couple’s names and an Art Nouveau motif.

The design itself played off the ceremony décor and elements of the reception. The bound-book format included perforated cards that would contain all pertinent information and incorporate every element of the invitation into a sleek and modern package. The invitation itself featured the color palette of the ceremony and reception—peacock colors of regal purples, greens, and a splash of red. A Philip Morris-inspired pattern enhanced the booklet’s cover and Art Nouveau-inspired motifs were reflected on the interior pages. Liberal use of bold, interesting, colorful graphics and original text made the text itself a graphic statement. In addition to traditional elements included in the invitation ensemble, we opted to include a copy of the reception menu. This would give the guests a formal listing of the culinary selections in advance, a good idea since the reception would feature chef action stations (and a traditional menu displayed at each setting seemed inappropriate).

If you have a lot to say, consider a hand-bound booklet style invitation.

Over the last couple of years we have worked increasingly with alternative reception venues as any of our couples are gravitating away from the more traditional ballrooms and requesting more trendy clubs for their wedding, where they have enjoyed fun times with their friends.

Night clubs, jazz clubs, cabaret clubs and, yes, even dance clubs are happy
to assist a couple in buying out a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night for just the right price. Of course, a buyout is based on the average nights profit they would normally receive if they were open so be prepared it may be less or more than you expect.

The fun thing about a club is the layout, atmosphere and if you enjoy the house band, you may be able to secure them at a great rate.

Room layout can be fun and difficult, all at the same time. You just need to be patient and work with the space utilizing booths, 6 tops, 4 tops and even 2 tops. High tops and low cabaret tables also fit right in. The club will generally have great décor and lounge style furniture. If you ask, chances are they will allow you to rearrange the furniture as long as you are careful and it’s up to fire code.

Atmosphere is usually the greatest when it comes to a club. Because you already identify with the club’s environment chances are you already like the interior design and décor of the space. Because of this, your décor budget will allow you to focus on up-lighting walls for dramatic affect and creating small centerpieces that don’t decorate the space but enhance the beauty of the room. Because the band and dance floor area usually take a prominent place in the room, this allows for great flow and great access on and off the dance floor. The band can be set up on the stage and speeches and toasts can be given from the stage as well.

If you want to have a little fun with a club reception, hire a few people
with flash cameras and as your guests arrive have them take photos of the
guests arriving as though they are stars being photographed by the paparazzi and hire others to pretend their fans and ask for their autographs which can echo their sentiments’ for you the couple. Team this up with a club re-mix CD of both of your favorite songs and you have a perfect favor for your guests!

The excitement of fireworks for any celebration is sure to get the ‘Oohs and Ahhs’.  And for a wedding the display of fireworks is sure to not only thrill your guests but also surprise them.   Fireworks for a wedding can take on many different forms such as sparklers when the couple leave the reception, fountain cones to announce an afterglow party outdoors or the large displays we loved as kids and wish would never end.

There are a few things you need to consider when having fireworks at your wedding (don’t just assume you can have fireworks anywhere):

Indoor or Outdoor Pyrotechnics

Clearing radius around the take off of the fireworks.

City, Town or County Permit

Fire Marshall Approval

When is sunset?

Time limit when they need to be completed

Noise restrictions (booms) after a certain time in the evening

How to you introduce fireworks:

Most displays are done at the end of the reception when the bride and groom leave or when the reception comes to an end.  Here is something we did for a wedding and the guests really enjoyed it. Once again gave them a surprise after the fireworks ended.

At the end of the dinner, the guests were ushered outside for an after dinner glass of champagne and toast from the bride and groom to their guests thanking them for spending their glorious day with them to celebrate their marriage.  As the guests raised their glass to say cheers, the first fireworks shot into the sky.  Following the finale, guests returned to their dinner to find the table stripped of dirty dishes and freshly re-set with a piece of wedding cake, chocolate truffle and a cordial.

What a finale!

We are all used to the various wine and cheese tastings, so welcome aboard to Stout and chocolate pairings. When planning the interactive cocktail reception why limit the guests to a wine and cheese tasting, (or having wine and chocolate for dessert?) Before reaching for the wine, why not consider beer instead – a trendy new twist.

Long before micro brewing became popular, beer had always had a foothold with chocolate…as you investigate you will determine some stout even have cocoa in them. So when greeted by a challenge to come up with a fun thing for the beer drinking guys to do at a reception we thought, “why not a stout and chocolate tasting.”

We needed to introduce this concept to the guests who are used to wine and cheese, but stout and chocolate? That was going to be new. We had signs made for the tasting, as we knew people would ask what it was. Much to their surprise and ours they thought it was a great idea. They had never heard of it so they wanted to give it a try. We had one server who asked what type of stout they liked and then poured a small juice glass of stout and then the guests pared it with a chocolate. Some said it was like a pop of chocolate and a soothing smooth taste of beer. Some said it was the richest taste of chocolate they have ever had.

So the big question is what to pair with what type of chocolate. That is where the fun begins. There is really no rime or reason to any specific pairing. It is hard to settle on just one beer to pair with chocolate. Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, and beer are such natural partners that almost any random beer can pair very nicely with a chunk of chocolate. Even a simple Pilsner can be elevated by good chocolate. It’s particularly excited when pairing based on contrasts rather than similarities. So if you want to pair, pair the opposite – Dark Chocolate with a lager, a milk chocolate with a Dark Stout like Guinness and for the ultimate in sensation a white chocolate with a creamy ale.

Who says you can’t have a wedding reception outdoors in Minneapolis in the month of December?  We did just that for Bonnie and Jim.  Okay, not the entire reception but we did have a fire pit and a custom ice bar for the brave at heart to smoke their cigars and drink Guinness Beer.

We like to plan out of the ordinary things for our clients. When we discovered Jim liked his cigars and a lot of his friends did as well we thought, ‘well, it’s going to have to be outside so how are we going to keep them warm?’  Fire and Ice!  Our plan was simple to create a lounge area outside the reception to house an ice bar with an attendant who would serve Guinness Beer. The attendant also provided awesome cigars and clipped the ends for the guests.  Our job was to keep the flames going and make sure there was plenty of heat. And the guests weren’t shy of braving the elements. It was a conversation starter as guests mingled around the warmth of the fire. We went through 8 bundles of wood and the Guinness was still pouring – mission accomplished.

The guests had so much fun even with the temperature at 18 Degrees. One woman came in from the lounge dressed in a great cocktail dress, a fur coat and great high heels. We told her she won the award for being outside the longest and much to our surprise she said, “And I’m from the south!’

Consider creating a Fire and Ice lounge for your wedding reception.